Salem Cruz grew up in a house with too many rules, too many regulations, and no fun allowed. That never worked for her so she left it all behind as soon as she could, but she never forgot the sweet, blue-eyed boy next door who’d been in love with her little sister. Fate and good intentions from an old friend have placed her right in Rowdy’s path and she’s determined to show him he picked the wrong sister all those years ago. A mission that is going along perfectly until the one person that ties them together shows up and could very well tear them back apart.
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Nash and Saint’s Playlist
Blood or Whiskey: “Never Be Me”
Band of Skulls: “Fires”; “Navigate”
The Pixies: “Holiday Song”
Deadstring Brothers: “Silver Mountain”
Drive-By Truckers: “Everybody Needs Love”; “Lookout Mountain”
Dropkick Murphys: “Echoes on ‘A.’ Street”
The Kills: “Heart Is a Beating Drum”
The Vines: “Outtathaway”
The Tossers: “Alone”
Flatfoot 56: “Son of Shame”
Her Space Holiday: “No More Good Ideas”
Sea Wolf: “The Cold, the Dark, and the Silence”; “Song for the Dead”
The Pogues: “If I Should Fall from Grace with God”; “(And the Band Played) Waltzing Matilda”
Johnny Cash: “Danny Boy”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First I gotta give all the love to the two tiny blondes that rule my writing world, Stacey Donaghy of the Donaghy Literary Group, who is my fearless agent, and Amanda Bergeron, my brilliant editor from HarperCollins. They are both equally important for bringing these Marked Men into the world and I honestly don’t know what my life would look like without either one of them. I adore that they just let me do my thing (with the proper amount of reining in) and that the end result is always so much better than I imagined. I am truly blessed to get to work with women that I genuinely like, respect, and admire.
The other person key to my writing world is my book bestie. Oh, you can call her what you want, I always say she is a woman of many talents and many names. To me she is a sounding board, a friend, a fellow book lover, and for Nash’s story not only is the inspiration for one of the characters, she was also my medical guru, my Nursey-No-Mercy. Thanks, Mel, for always being there, for offering your knowledge and support, and for generously giving me punctuation and feedback in every first draft I write. Thanks for being an awesome critique partner and just all-around an awesome friend. I love you and your giant brain so hard.
I never had too many complaints about running a bar. It was a really fun job. I got to meet cool and interesting people. I got to play with booze all day. Beer delivery guys are pretty cute and have big muscles, and I always got to stay up late and never had to get up early. That being said, this new job I have kicks that job’s butt, and the people I’ve been fortunate enough to meet in the last year … well, I can’t tell you how exciting and interesting it has been. From fellow authors, publishing professionals, to bloggers, to readers, to event organizers, to the people I have Internet-befriended along the way. Book people are the best. End of story. Thank you all for making the last year a blast, and I gotta thank Sophie Jordan, Jennifer Armentrout, Cora Carmack, and Lisa Desrochers for showing the new girl the ropes and making me feel welcome. I love hanging out with these ladies and it’s always a good time when we get in the same room.
Of course, my folks always need to get a shout out because they are awesome and there are none better. Did you know my dad is coming to my European signings with me this year? If you see a guy walking around that has a cowboy mustache and probably something with a Dodge logo on it, that’s him. Buy him a beer or a shot of Jack and tell him thanks for being the base inspiration for all these hot guys swimming around in my head. My mom is wonderful. She’s not only my biggest fan but my closest confidante. I just love her to pieces and I’m grateful that with all the opportunities I’ve had come my way, I get to experience so many of them with her. She likes red wine and has lots and lots of blond hair if you want to buy her a drink instead.
I can’t write a story about loving yourself, about knowing you are fabulous just the way you are, and not throw out a thank-you to my bestie. She’s amazing at this. Really understands the importance of it, and the journey she had to take in order to remember how wonderful and amazing she really is was heartbreaking. But she got back to where she needed to be and I couldn’t be prouder or more stoked for her. She is always the strongest, most beautiful person I know inside and out. I just LOVE Settie Phillips to a million pieces. I am so very lucky I get the honor of having her as my best friend.
And always my most important, most heartfelt and overwhelming amount of thanks goes out to you … the reader. OMG, where would I be without you guys? I will always be taken aback, dumbfounded, and completely humbled when I get an e-mail saying something I wrote is their favorite book, or that they related to what the characters are going through, or that they appreciate how “real” my storytelling is. I never really thought past hitting publish on Rule, so now that we are four books in, I really can’t tell you how much value and wonder all of you have brought into my life. I think of each and every single reader as a gift, as a compatriot, as a fellow book lover, and as a friend. Thank you so very much from the bottom of my tattooed heart.
The above goes for all you amazing and dedicated bloggers out there. Thank you for the support. Thank you for being invested in this world I have created. Thank you for spreading the word and taking the time and effort to write reviews and give valuable space and time on your blogs to me and the boys. Thank you for all that you do!!
Finally, I have to tell you how much I love the girls at http://literatiauthorservices.com/. Karen, Michelle, and Rosette have made my now hectic and busy life far more manageable. They are organized and efficient, but mostly they are delightful and wonderful ladies. They know it all, the business end, the blogging end, the reading end, and the promotional end. I wouldn’t just trust my boys in the hands of anyone, and I tell them all the time working with them is the best decision I ever made!! If you need marketing or promotional help, look them up, you won’t be sorry you did it.
I love my dogs. That is all.
Did you fall in love with Nash and Saint? Want to go back to where it all started?
Then keep reading …
Opposites don’t just attract … They catch fire and burn the city down
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CHAPTER 1
Rule
At first I thought the pounding in my head was my brain trying to fight its way out of my skull after the ten or so shots of Crown Royal I had downed last night, but then I realized the noise was someone storming around in my apartment. She was here, and with dread I remembered that it was Sunday. No matter how many times I told her, or how rude I was to her, or whatever kind of debauched and unsavory condition she found me in, she showed up every Sunday morning to drag me home for brunch.
A soft moan from the other side of the bed reminded me that I hadn’t come home alone from the bar last night. Not that I remembered the girl’s name or what she looked like, or if it had even been worth her while to stumble into my apartment with me. I ran a hand over my face and swung my legs over the edge of the bed just as the bedroom door swung open. I never should have given the little brat a key. I didn’t bother to cover up; she was used to walking in and finding me hungover and naked—I didn’t see why today should be any different. The girl on the other side of the bed rolled over and narrowed her eyes at the new addition to our awkward little party.
“I thought you said you were single?” The accusation in her tone lifted the hair on the back of my neck. Any chick who was willing to come home with a stranger for a night of no-strings-attached sex didn’t get the right to pass judgment, especially while she was still naked and rumpled in my bed.
> “Give me twenty,” I said, my eyes shifting to the blonde in the doorway as I ran a hand through my messy hair.
She lifted an eyebrow. “You have ten.”
I would have lifted an eyebrow back at her tone and attitude but my head was killing me, and the gesture would have been wasted on her anyway; she was way past immune to my shit.
“I’ll make coffee. I already invited Nash but he said he has to go to the shop for an appointment. I’ll be in the car.” She spun on her heel, and, just like that, the doorway was empty. I was struggling to my feet, searching the floor for the pair of pants I might have tossed down there last night.
“What’s going on?”
I had temporarily forgotten about the girl in my bed. I swore softly under my breath and tugged a black T-shirt that looked reasonably clean over my head. “I have to go.”
“What?”
I frowned at her as she lifted herself up in the bed and clutched the sheet to her chest. She was pretty and had a nice body from what I could see. I wondered what kind of game I had thrown at her in order to get her to come home with me. She was one I didn’t mind waking up to this morning.
“I have somewhere I need to be, so that means you need to get up and get going. Normally my roommate would be around, so you could hang out for a minute, but he had to go to work, so that means you need to get that fine ass in gear and get out.”
She sputtered a little at me. “Are you kidding me?”
I looked over my shoulder as I dug my boots out from under a pile of laundry and shoved my feet into them. “No.”
“What kind of asshole does that? Not even a ‘thanks for last night, you were great, how about lunch?’ Just ‘get the fuck out’?” She threw the sheet aside and I noticed she had a nice tattoo scrawled along her ribs that curled across her shoulder and along her collarbone. That was probably what had attracted me to her in my drunken stupor in the first place. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
I was a whole lot more than just a piece of work, but this chick, who was just one of oh so many, didn’t need to know that. I silently cursed my roommate, Nash, who was the real shit here. We had been best friends since elementary school, and I could normally rely on him to run interference for me on Sunday mornings when I had to bail, but I had forgotten about the piece he was supposed to be finishing up today. That meant I was on my own when it came to hustling last night’s tail out the door and getting a move on before the brat left without me, which was a bigger headache than I needed in my current state.
“Hey, what’s your name anyway?”
If she wasn’t pissed before, she was downright infuriated now. She climbed back into a supershort black skirt and a barely there tank top. She fluffed up her mound of dyed blond hair and glared at me out of eyes now smudged with old mascara. “Lucy. You don’t remember?”
I slimed some crap in my hair to make it stand up in a bunch of different directions and sprayed on cologne to help mask the scent of sex and booze that I was sure still clung to my skin. I shrugged a shoulder at her and waited as she hopped by me on one foot putting on heels that just screamed dirty sex.
“I’m Rule.” I would have offered to shake her hand but that seemed silly so I just pointed to the front door of the apartment and stepped in the bathroom to brush the stale taste of whiskey out of my mouth. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. Maybe you should write your number down and I can give you a call another time. Sundays aren’t good days for me.” She would never know how true that statement was.
She glared at me and tapped the toe of one of those awesome shoes. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?”
This time, even against my throbbing brain’s wishes, my eyebrow went up and I looked at her with a mouthful of toothpaste foam. I just stared at her until she screeched at me and pointed at her side. “You have to at least remember this!”
No wonder I liked her ink so much; it was one of mine. I spit the toothpaste in the sink and gave myself a once-over in the mirror. I looked like hell. My eyes were watery and rimmed in red, my skin looked gray, and there was a hickey the size of Rhode Island on the side of my neck—Mom was going to love that. Just like she was going to fall all over herself about the current state of my hair. It was normally thick and dark, but I had shaved the sides and dyed the front a nice, bright purple, so now it stuck up straight like a Weedwacker had been used to cut it. Both my folks already had an issue with the scrolling ink that wound around both my arms and up the side of my neck, so the hair was just going to be icing on the cake. Since there was nothing I could do to fix the current shit show looking back at me in the mirror I prowled out of the bathroom and unceremoniously grabbed the girl by the elbow and towed her to the front door. I needed to remember to go home with them instead of letting them come home with me; it was so much easier that way.
“Look, I have somewhere I have to be, and I don’t particularly love that I have to go, but you freaking out and making a scene is not going to do anything other than piss me off. I hope you had a good time last night and you can leave your number, but we both know the chances of me calling you are slim to none. If you don’t want to be treated like crap, maybe you should stop going home with drunken dudes you don’t know. Trust me, we’re really after only one thing and the next morning all we really want is for you to go quietly away. I have a headache and I feel like I’m going to hurl, plus I have to spend the next hour in a car with someone who will be silently loathing me and joyously plotting my death, so really, can we just save the histrionics and get a move on it?”
By now I had maneuvered Lucy to the entryway of the building, and I saw my blond tormentor in the BMW idling in the spot next to my truck. She was impatient and would take off if I wasted any more time. I gave Lucy a half grin and shrugged a shoulder—after all it wasn’t her fault I was an asshole, and even I knew she deserved better than such a callous brush-off.
“Look, don’t feel bad. I can be a charming bastard when I put my mind to it. You are far from the first and won’t be the last to see this little show. I’m glad your tat turned out badass, and I’d prefer you remember me for that rather than last night.”
I jogged down the front steps without looking back and yanked open the door to the fancy black BMW. I hated this car and hated that it suited the driver as well as it did. Classy, sleek, and expensive were definitely words that could be used to describe my traveling companion. As we pulled out of the parking lot, Lucy yelled at me and flipped me off. My driver rolled her eyes and muttered, “Classy” under her breath. She was used to the little scenes chicks liked to throw when I bailed on them the morning after. I even had to replace her windshield once when one of them had chucked a rock at me and missed while I was walking away.
I adjusted the seat to accommodate my long legs and settled in to rest my head against the window. It was always a long and achingly silent drive. Sometimes, like today, I was grateful for it; other times it grated on my very last nerve. We had been a fixture in each other’s lives since middle school, and she knew every strength and fault I had. My parents loved her like their own daughter and made no bones about the fact that they more often than not preferred her company over mine. One would think with all the history, both good and bad, between us, that we could make simple small talk for a few hours without it being difficult.
“You’re going to get all that junk that’s in your hair all over my window.” Her voice—all cigarettes and whiskey—didn’t match the rest of her, which was all champagne and silk. I had always liked her voice; when we got along I could listen to her talk for hours.
“I’ll get it detailed.”
She snorted. I closed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. I was all set for a silent ride, but apparently she had things to say today, because as soon as she pulled the car onto the highway she turned the radio down and said my name. “Rule.”
I turned my head slightly to the side and cracked open an eye. “Shaw.” Her name was just as fancy
as the rest of her. She was pale, had snowy white-blond hair, and big green eyes that looked like Granny Smith apples. She was tiny, an easy foot shorter than my own six three, but had curves that went on for days. She was the kind of girl that guys looked at, because they just couldn’t help themselves, but as soon as she turned those frosty green eyes in their direction they knew they wouldn’t stand a chance. She exuded unattainability the way some other girls oozed “come and get me.”
She blew out a breath and I watched a strand of hair twirl around her forehead. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and I stiffened when I saw how tight her hands were on the steering wheel.
“What is it, Shaw?”
She bit her bottom lip, a sure sign she was nervous. “I don’t suppose you answered any of your mom’s calls this week?”
I wasn’t exactly tight with my folks. In fact, our relationship hovered somewhere around the mutually tolerable area, which is why my mom sent Shaw to drag me home each weekend. We were both from a small town called Brookside, in an affluent part of Colorado. I’d moved to Denver as soon as I had my diploma in hand, and Shaw had moved there a few years later. She was a few years younger than me, and she had wanted nothing more than to get into the University of Denver. Not only did the girl look like a fairy-tale princess, but she was also on track to be a freaking doctor. My mom knew there was no way I would make the two-hour drive there and back to see them on the weekends, but if Shaw came to get me, I would have to go, not only because I would feel guilty that she’d taken time out of her busy schedule, but also because she paid for the gas, waited for me to stumble out of bed, and dragged my sorry ass home every single Sunday and not once in going on two years had she complained about it.
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